U.S. Pat. No. 6,578,939, granted to Mayer, discloses “Universal sliding rail assembly for rack mounting computers”. According to FIG. 1 accompanying the specification of this US patent, a slide rail assembly includes an outer rail (102), a middle rail (104) slidably connected to the outer rail (102), an inner rail (106) slidably connected to the middle rail (104), and a bracket (200) movably connected to the outer rail (102). This slide rail assembly, however, does not have a rail reinforcing structure. In view of the drawbacks of a slide rail assembly without a reinforcing structure, Dubon et al. disclose “Adjustable reinforcing bracket for telescoping slide rail assembly” in US Published Patent Application No. 2006/0152115 A1. The telescoping slide rail assembly disclosed in the US published patent application of Dubon et al. includes a stationary slide rail 22, which includes a wall with an outer surface. The two ends of the stationary slide rail 22 can be mounted to a pair of posts of a rack via the mounting elements 26, 40 respectively. The telescoping slide rail assembly further includes a reinforcing element 32 connected to the outer surface of the wall of the stationary slide rail 22 and a mounting slide rail 34 slidably connected to the reinforcing element 32.
According to FIG. 1 and FIG. 8 accompanying the specification of the US published patent application of Dubon et al., the reinforcing element 32, which is configured to reinforce the stationary slide rail 22 and is connected to the stationary slide rail 22 along with the mounting slide rail 34, adds to the width of the telescoping slide rail assembly. Therefore, when it is desired to mount a pair of such telescoping slide rail assemblies respectively at two corresponding positions of a rack, whose internal space is limited, the width of the reinforced slide rail assemblies tends to hinder the mounting process, if not rendering the slide rail assemblies inapplicable. That is to say, the telescoping slide rail assembly disclosed in the US published patent application of Dubon et al. may have problem being put to industrial use.
A better design is hence desired to overcome the shortcomings stated above of the prior art.